16 Jul
2019
16 Jul
'19
2:24 p.m.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2019 08:06:20 +0100
Philip Ashmore <contact(a)philipashmore.com> wrote:
Sometimes the sound starts muted and I have to enable
it with kmixer
which tells me that I have two mixers, PulseAudio and "HDA Intel PCH".
Maybe that's because I end the session with earphones plugged in and
start it with them unplugged, not sure.
"HDA Intel PCH" is the underlying ALSA mixer and PulseAudio is layered on
overtop.
ALSA is the real sound system--Pulse just offers some auxiliary services like easier
Bluetooth association, and you may not need it at all if your sound system only involves
local wired speakers and/or headphones. (Early versions of PulseAudio were also
notoriously buggy, but hopefully you're not running a really old version.)
The automute could be coming from a conflict between the two layers, or from ALSA
being unable to save settings on system shutdown for some reason.
E. Liddell